Hello world & first comments & apologize

From: COPPEAU, Jean-Christophe <Jean-Christophe.COPPEAU_at_...>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 11:44:14 +0200


Hi every body,
French boy joining you ( I apologize if you find my english to be approximate ).
I had my hard copy of HW and Narrator's book a few days ago ( the whole thing in english, so maybe I lost some subtlety), and jumped into the glorantha newsgroups.
The reading of your past exchanges ( seems this forum is a free-for-alls extended contest ... ;-)² ) has been a great source to help me have a good understanding of the rules, so many thanks to all of you, folks.

I have been playing rpg for some 13 years now, as a player and a narrator. I bought Glorantha some 10 years ago I would say, still I have never manage to play a single game session.
I had some problems at this time to find extensions like the one about the Gloranthian deities, and as a result I just managed to put my greedy fingers on two or three books, and I had the feeling that I was missing a great game.
As in the same time my players were too lazy ( Oh Please, let's play stormbringer or some Cthulhu, I already KNOW the background, and I UNDERSTAND the rules.... ) to be interested in this game I just let the subject drop to an end.
Mainly Glorantha has proved to be very useful to me as an inspiration source for the other worlds I made my players jumped in, and also to expand the rules of other chaosium games on a instant basis when I wanted a particular event to have more dramatic effect on my players.

I was waiting for HW with expectation, and I must say it was worth the wait. As a narrator, I have always been disapointed with the rules I used. I wanted to be able to deal with the same task in different ways dependind on the circumstances, and as a result when one of my player wanted to climb a mountain, depending of the narrative impact it could be as simple as 'What's your score? Hu... Ok you have quite a hard time but you finally manage to do it' or as boring as 'Make xx roles, ...' and describing every result with my brain having a hard time to find some new way to present the it each time...
First think I like with HW is that it is tailored to fit you narrative, and you seem to always have a handy way to solve a situation ( Your discussions about skirmishes and the way I should treat the Trollkins band as one entity 12/68 or as a group of followers or as 20 individuals were very interesting from this point of view ).
Second, the rules of extended contest which are made for dramatic events do not emphasize on result, but on the way the adversaries can perceive the ebb and flow of the contest at hand ( 'Dear God, he managed to put off the lace of my shirt, I will never be able to outfit this bastard' or 'After this brilliant talk you feel shame as it's now obvious to anybody that your feelings have shrouded your mind. You feel confused and reluctant to expose once more' ). I like the idea that the characters cannot really know how badly injured ( may it be physically or socialy ) they are until it's to late, and that if they do they lose part of their focuse and become hesitating.
Third I like the narrative creation process; no more we don't get what we wanted, or I fumbled my roll can I try again, or my character is a jerk comparing to his; Now, you have what you did, if you are not satisfied, just work your narrative a bit more, that's great. Fourth, the masteries; I had done my own system with mastery making you change your kind of die, and contests being resolved by the opposing characters rolling their own die ( D6 against D20.... frightening for my players ), but it was too messy, and the HW mastery system is perfect for me ( Yes, Matthieu, now you can really play your weapon master musketeer and act with bravado.
Fifth, I like the way scenarii are presented in the narrator's book, that's the better formal way to present my own way to build scenarii and campaigns.

Enough, you understand my feelings...
The main point is I won't be able to play Runequest at this time because I already have a Vampire and Gemini campaign, no more time, and players who would go at my throat if I dare to stop those, but I will use all the HW rules for these campaigns.
All of that to say: I like Glorantha as a world, but even without that HW is great and the rules can be used for any other kind of world. I should tell you more if you are interested ( not sure it's the right place, uh ?? )

That's it, I shall from now on discuss the rules and only the rules ;-)²

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